


You Fall Slowly, And Then All At Once

by Coldsaturn



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:00:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldsaturn/pseuds/Coldsaturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being unused to pretending or lying to himself, Miller realizes how much his reactions are unusual when they concern the Asian guy. And the tragicomic thing is that he doesn't even know him. For the past few weeks Miller has gone from "he could be my brother", to "he has nice features" to explain why Monty’s face stands out against others’, and he still has no idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Fall Slowly, And Then All At Once

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What do you do when you can't crawl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239636) by [Zoadgo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo). 



> So, [thislittlebadwolf](http://thislittlebadwolf.tumblr.com) asked for a Minty oneshot right after 2x07. It took me so long that I had the time to watch 2x08 too, and then the story got way out of hand.

  
The first time Miller notices that there is something strange in Monty Green, they have just landed on Earth. It’s sheer panic, absorbed and released back into the air by 100 adolescents with stupidity and recklessness. In the first few days at least eight fights break out, the kind with more than ten members that back on the Ark could only be seen in the Sky Box during the Unity Day celebrations, with all the guards distracted and half drunk.

Who was left locked up in jail for more than one year, waiting to die, knows how much a good fistfight can help quell the panic. One second you're shaking because your future is black and the next you're not even thinking about it anymore, you're too busy knocking down your opponent before they KO you. You go from not breathing because of the anxiety to not breathing because of the pain, and you can finally put a definite face to what you’re feeling, you can make sense of it, even if temporary. Thus, at least one third of the delinquents begins to punch one another because they miss home, and Miller is one of those a couple of times.  
  
The bruises help him feel his feet firmly planted on the ground, as much as it is impossible to fear otherwise now that the gravitational system can no longer get jammed at least once a month. He sees other boys walking around with far worse wounds than his, and they are all more relaxed, more resigned to their new life. At least they have a chance to have one now, Miller thinks.  
  
Things start to become suspicious when Miller eyes delinquents who should remain out of action for at least two days with the beatings they’ve taken, and instead they go around the camp as if nothing had happened less than two hours after the fight. Miller knows that the only person who knows something about medicine is Griffin, but he certainly didn’t imagine she had such a talent. Her mother must have floated her to avoid competition.

Curious he moves toward the dropship, where more than once he had seen broken men go in and fixed carcasses come out, too lively for their still battered appearance. At the door, Miller moves the curtain covering the entrance and peeks inside, cautious not to find someone with their guts out or other disgusting stuff like that. It had already happened on the Ark, when he used to sneak around the med unit to borrow goods too luxurious for the poor people, and it had taken him two weeks to stop having flashes about the shiny surface of the guy’s internal organs. Even now, recalling those images gives him nausea.  
  
Luckily, inside no gruesome scene is taking place: Clarke is on one side of the room taking care of a boy lying on a blanket on the floor,moving his leg up and down; on the other side he spots Monty Green talking to a girl who’s holding her stomach. It would have been a normal scene if Monty didn’t run toward the makeshift table made of a metal sheet and two seats, and begin to rummage through twigs and grass blades--where did they come from and when did Monty take them?--and then rip the leaves from a specific stem, giving it to the girl. She seems to thank him and does an about face to exit the dropship, Miller shoots to the side to avoid being seen, strangely tense to the idea of being caught spying.  
  
Monty is one of those strange people who doesn’t fit exactly into any category. He's not among those who vent their frustration through fighting, nor among those who have sex to stop crying, and not in the group which has self-declared itself the adventure squad, but he surely cannot even be the goody-goody he seems; he wouldn’t be here otherwise. Another detail he doesn’t understand: Miller has the feeling of having already seen him somewhere, but it’s certain that he had never crossed Monty in the Sky Box, and as for the rest of the Ark, they would have been both too small then to recognize each other now. But his face is still incredibly familiar, and it gives Miller a strange feeling, as if he felt the need to do something. Miller walks away from the dropship shaking his head; radiation must be frying his brain.  
  
It takes him two more days to confirm his hypothesis: Monty is an expert on medical plants. Or on plants in general, if all the warnings about poisonous flowers and mushrooms are true. Miller is not really impressed because Monty has an area of interest--most of them at least got to start with a specific course on some useful job on the Ark--but because by eavesdropping on conversations here and there, Miller finds out that Monty’s culture goes far beyond what the simple manual would have required from him. From chemistry to biology to physics, Monty would have been a perfect scientist in another era.

Monty also becomes the manager of the electrical system of the dropship, and immediately starts working on a way to use their wristbands to communicate with the Ark. For being a little shy and insecure chap, he sure has several aces up his sleeve.

Miller goes to sleep more relaxed, knowing he has someone with a real brain in the team.

 

\+ + +

 

The second time thoughts of Monty deprive Miller of sleep is when Monty fights with his best friend, Jasper. Considering how they've always been joined at the hip, Miller marvels at the fact that a fight had not broken out sooner.  
  
At this point the delinquents are in open conflict with the Grounders, and Clarke and Bellamy exert their uncontested leadership. All the others have fitted in accordance with a rough social scale in which at the higher levels there are the leaders’ closest friends. It is quite irritating, especially because there are very valid elements among them that are shadowed simply because they mind their own business and they’re not part of the royal party. Monty is one of those, generally considered simply because he is Jasper’s best friend, and Jasper is a social hurricane. Since Raven has arrived, with a closer contact to the upper levels, Monty has been downgraded further.  
  
That's why Miller finds himself worried about him, now that his reference point has turned his back on him. Miller has lived for years watching as the guards of the ark switched sides according to the newcomers of the moment and the current rumors - his father spent whole dinners complaining about it--, so he knows what can happen when the group dynamic changes. And Monty is risking big time, without even knowing it.  
  
One evening, Miller doesn't see the boy around the fire during dinner, so he decides to go looking for him, in case he was having problems with somebody. When the chatter is far away enough to let Miller hear his own shortness of breath as he strides along the field toward Monty’s tent, he realizes--with no little surprise--that he's upset. Miller slows down to a stop, looking at his sweaty hands as if they were foreign to his body. What the heck was he so afraid of?  
  
Shaking his head to try and pull himself together, Miller looks around until he eyes Monty and Jasper’s tent, illuminated from the inside by the lamp that everyone received on the first day. He knows that Jasper is at the main fire telling for the twentieth time the story of his heroic feats, so Miller approaches the tent trying to hear if there’s someone else with Monty.

When the shuffling under his shoes is the only sound he can hear around, Miller draws a deep breath and walks to the entrance. Through the fabric he can see Monty’s dark shape crouched on the mattress, apparently turned in the opposite direction to him, his rounded shoulders  making Miller guess he has a blanket over himself.  
  
Miller pulls aside the flap of the entry, careful to make as little noise as possible, and peeks inside. Just as he thought, Monty is sitting on the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest, one of the new blankets retrieved by Bellamy and Clarke during their last excursion on his shoulders. His head is still, as if it were focused on something, or lost in thought. There is a sadness hanging at Monty’s back which pulls at his heartstrings, and once again Miller wonders what makes Monty so special to deserve his empathy.

Being unused to pretending or lying to himself, Miller realizes how much his reactions are unusual when they concern the Asian guy. And the tragicomic thing is that he doesn't even know him. For the past few weeks Miller has gone from "he could be my brother", to "he has nice features" to explain why Monty’s face stands out against others’, and he still has no idea.

Monty's shoulders tremble slightly, and instinctively Miller half closes the flap of the tent that he was keeping ajar, reluctantly accepting the wave of guilt for sending a puff of cold air inside. He shouldn’t stand there like a creepy stalker, but he doesn’t feel like he can simply walk over to him either. So he stands there awkwardly, trying to reassure himself for whatever reason that the boy is OK.

The more minutes pass, the more Miller gets pissed off at himself. What kind of danger is Monty in, anyway? What is he fearing, that a bunch of assholes will take advantage of his isolation to mess him up? They aren't on the Ark anymore, and guys like Monty only had problems in specific kind of groups.

The fabric slips through his fingers, giving away an imperceptible rustling as it settles against the zip and closes his view of the inside of the tent. Miller stands there, frowning at himself. Guys like Monty? What does that even mean? He steps back, feeling an ache in his chest.

Monty's shadow is still on full view on the lateral side of the tent, an air of loneliness around him that seems to scream louder as the silence covers everything. Massaging his chest with his right hand, as if to relieve an itch, Miller forces himself to go away, his mind going a mile per minute.

So he has very awkward protective urges toward a guy he doesn't even know; that's not so bad, it could be worse. Trying to recall the first time he has felt that way toward Monty, the day of the launch comes to his mind: they had all been strapped to their seats into the dropship, and as the countdown had started, his gaze had casually landed on him, who was laughing and literally jumping on the spot next to Jasper. Miller remembers feeling a sudden wave of rage toward the Ark, for putting someone so...so what? There wasn't a single adjective which could cover what Monty had appeared to his eyes in that moment: happy, boyish, young, completely and disturbingly out of place. He hadn't looked like a delinquent, still doesn't.

And even if there were others like him, simple victims of an unfair system, Monty is the only one that somehow is still that naive, happy boy he had seen on the first day of this nightmare. Maybe it's this particular that's been calling to him and pushes him to shield the boy from further pain: that all the violence and the blood they have bathed in hasn't touch him the least.

Miller sighs, seemingly satisfied with the current interpretation. It would also explain why seeing Monty so sad has suddenly made his fist crave for Jasper's face. The new hero better make up with his best friend soon, or he will regret his new social status.

 

\+ + +

 

Monty disappears while on a search mission one night.  
  
When the group returns to the camp, at first their grim expressions seem to confirm the situation they were in already: Clarke, Finn and Myles still missing; but then Miller pauses to count them, his heart suddenly beginning to pound in his chest, and he finds another person missing.  
  
He doesn't even have to ask what happened, Bellamy simply looks at him and shakes his head slowly, his entire face aged ten years in a single day. He’s lost his partner, her boyfriend, plus another delinquent, who had happened to have more wisdom than all of them put together. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this mission was an exemplary failure, and that Bellamy is blaming himself for it.  
  
Miller takes his rifle off himself and hands it to Bellamy, murmuring that he needs to retrieve a bit of water. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jasper talking to Octavia, and Miller recognizes the moment she gives him the news by how his entire spine stiffens. He should have made Monty stay back at the camp. He should have kept him safe. If they were such close friends, why on earth had he let Monty go when there’s a whole army of fucking savages armed with spears that are decimating them each passing week?  
  
Clenching his fists and resisting the temptation to hit Jasper, Miller quickly leaves that side of the camp. There’s a block of granite in his chest, and every muscle fiber trembles as if it wants to blow him up from inside.

As soon as he reaches his tent, Miller grabs the first thing he finds on the ground--a metal glass--and throws it with all his strength to the far corner. The glass bounces with an unsatisfactory thud, and Miller has just enough time to kneel on the mattress, before tears start to pile up and blur his vision. With fists clenched tight enough to feel his nails sinking into his flesh, he raises his right arm and then makes it fall down hard, hearing a choked moan from his throat reach his ears.

An eternity passes while Miller vents his anger by punching the mattress, staring at the prints his hands leave on the surface and imagining to be consuming and depleting the fabric’s resistance until he reaches the hard ground. The stronger the hits are, the more the pain increases, and the more Miller feels a distant echo of satisfaction. Feeling pain is an appropriate answer to dull the rage his heart is drowning in.

His breath comes in strangled growls, and the most terrifying thing is that Miller doesn’t understand what's happening to him, why Monty is so important. He can tell himself all the excuses in the world about how much the boy was important in the camp, or how unfair it was that everyone treated him as if he were worth less than he deserved, but if there’s one sure thing that Miller knows and has the courage to admit, is that all this is personal. Monty is his personal problem, to hell with the camp.   
  
Monty was the only person that Miller wanted to protect in that madhouse, the only reason why he used to repeat to himself that getting his own hands dirty with blood was worth it. Because every joke, every game, every laugh of the boy was worth the boulders Miller was piling up on his back. Because Miller hadn’t got the courage yet to ask Monty how did he manage to stay so clean, when everything around them was tar and death. Because every morning Miller told himself that was the day he would finally start talking to Monty, and that procrastination had become the best excuse to get up every morning, waiting for something beautiful.

Miller lowers his torso till he’s folded in half on the bed. He takes a shaky breath, trying to find again the axis around which he could spin. He doesn’t know when or why Monty had become his business, but now Miller has to find the strength to carry on. He’d already said goodbye to his father and all his friends on the Ark, it won’t be that difficult digging another hole in his chest.   
  
Mere days later, Mountain Men take them.

 

\+ + +

 

Miller is trapped into his own body. It's like being inside a huge box from the top of which the light from outside filters in, but he cannot get out of it. The sides of the box are his skin and he is minuscule inside, unable to touch the surface of his prison. Every step he takes in any direction make the limits of the box get farther and farther, and he’d rather stay still than make the void go larger.

The hours he spends conscious and closed in his own carcass slide into lucid dreams without him being aware of it, and so he finds himself on the Ark--he always dreams about the Ark--walking down the neon lit corridors. Those are crowded dreams, its population entirely present in his mind, stored down to the most irritating details by his photographic memory. There are many faces that he would have rather not remembered.

The corridor trickles into his cabin, the one in which he lived with his father, and Miller sees himself as a child, a little seven years old brat with too many questions on his tongue and zero discipline on his back. He’s sitting at the table with his arms folded, legs crossed and dangling from his chair, his eyes fixed on the ground. His father is in front of the mirror, busy fixing the collar of his guard uniform. His face is a mask of stone, and as Miller slowly remembers this day of his life, he’d really like to wake up instantly. Miller tries to move his feet to get out of the cabin, but he is stuck on the spot; he closes his eyes to get away from the scene, and yet the room is printed behind his eyelids, cutting away even this escape.  
  
“Are you ready?” His father asks him.

Child-Miller shakes his head, lips pursed in a tenacious pout, "I don’t want to come!" He says forcefully, biting his lower lip when he hears how much his own voice is dangerously tilted toward a crying moan.

Miller feels his stomach turn over, as he rebuilds this day and what it meant to him in his memory. How could he have forgotten that?

His father sighs, turning toward the child, "But you have to. It’s important that you attend and learn what your job will entail."

"But I don’t want to be a guard!" Miller-child whines, refusing to face his father as he says it, already knowing what kind of look he must be giving him.

Adult-Miller sees things that he couldn’t have noticed as a child, and he observes as his father’s forehead wrinkles and his eyes go softer, as he looks at the child’s lowered head. There’s no telling if this is something that really happened, but it’s a nice fantasy.

“Let’s go.” His father orders peremptory. He walks toward the door and sets the alarm code for when they’ll be out. Child-Miller sniffles and jumps down from the chair, walking like a man heading toward the gallows.

Miller stays anchored to the cabin as the two ghosts exit from the door, and relief washes over him, knowing that he won’t have to see what happens next. Obviously luck is not on his side, and the room changes into the final part of the E-bridge of the Ark. With his stomach churning in disapproval, Miller finds himself looking at the Oblivion Door once again; the door the Ark uses for its executions.

Guards are already in position, and Kane is near the door, scrolling through some data on his pad.

As sweat covers his palms, Miller forces his legs to move, but his feet stay glued to the floor. He tries harder, getting the same, failed result.

One guard walks toward Kane and stops and stands at attention, “Sir, they’re both here.”

“Good, bring them forward.”

Two men are pushed by the guards to the space between the door and the non-paying audience. Miller is aligned with them, and he can see the small details that as a child he hadn’t been able to notice from his position: the one closest to him is an Asian man around 40 years old, his slender build hinting that his job doesn’t require physical strength, red streaks on his cheeks as evidence of dried tears, and the curve of his shoulders spelling failure. Beside him is a middle-aged man, and Miller recognizes him from his face as one of the chief guards; he’s dressed in ordinary clothes, no visible expression on his face until the man next to him touches his hand, and the old man’s whole face seems to melt in such a cascade of feelings that Miller finds it hard to watch.

Movement in the periphery of his vision makes Miller notice his childhood version being pushed into the forefront by his father. His younger-self is pointing his feet down onto the floor and has his eyes full of tears, but his father raises him from under the armpits and places him two steps farther, murmuring in his ear a menacing "Watch and learn. You will be head guard one day, and the law applies to you too. "  
  
Miller tries to swallow to soothe the tension in his throat, but he just makes it worse. The two men are holding hands now, their knuckles white and their hold slightly shaking.  
  
Kane puts away the pad and finally raises his eyes, looking at them. He sighs, as if he were suddenly tired of the day. “I expected more from you, as a chief guard.”   
  
“I have nothing to excuse myself for, Sir,” the old man answers, speaking to Kane with the usual tone which Miller is used to listening to from the voices around his father. The chief guard had always seemed to him a strict but fair person, and Miller had seen him ignore transgressions several times, so he could help the poorest people of the Ark. 

As a child Miller had spent sleepless nights trying to understand what their mistake had been, what had brought them to death. His father had told him that law applied to everyone, even the more powerful ones, but for Miller their executions had always had an aura of mystery. He remembers convincing himself that he had been executed for something as usual as theft, or illegal trafficking of prohibited material, or something like that.

“Try to explain that to your partner, that today will be floated because of you,” Kane answers curtly, looking over the chief guard’s head to the second man, who’s desperately trying to stop the tremors running through his shoulders.  
  
“It-t’s not his fault,” the second man manages to articulate, after clearing his throat. His voice has the typical roughness of someone who’s spent hours crying, and out of the corner of his eye, Miller sees his child-self mirror those tremors, leaving the tears free to run down his cheeks. He knows he’s about to attend an execution, and there’s no way to escape the show.  
  
“Well, in this case, it’s pointless to dwell,” Kane gives a quick glance at the pad, “I see that you’ve already assigned your successor, Sergeant Miller. And your son,” he points his chin at the other man, “is regularly under his mother’s custody. This concludes outstanding issues: Anthony Walker, Jie Green, you are both sentenced to death for sodomy. Get inside,” with a light tap of his hand on the red button next to the door, the glass slides aside opening the passage for the anteroom to nothingness.  
  
Miller can hear Jie’s throat cutting off his breath, and can’t help but feel himself choking as well. It had taken him years to bury this moment under stocks of rebellion and anger; the last thing he had wanted was to watch that scene again.  
  
Walker pulls up their joined hands and brings the back of Jie’s hand close to his mouth, murmurs something that Miller can’t hear from where he is, and then presses his partner’s skin to his lips. Kane distracts himself by looking at the ceiling, the other guards behind them can’t see what’s happening, but they still look extremely uncomfortable. Be it because of the crime as such or because they’re attending their captain being punished for it, their looks keep on shifting from surface to surface, without ever laying on the couple.  
  
When Walker lowers their hands, Jie looks calmer and nods faintly. Walker straightens his back and walks toward the next room, bringing Jie with him with much less strength than one would expect from someone walking towards their death. As soon as both are inside, Kane pushes again the button and the glass door seals them inside the anteroom. The noise of the pressurization of the room momentarily distracts Jie, who turns toward them; Miller fears that they may lock eyes, even if it’s just a memory and he has never been on this side of the room, but Walker stops Jie and takes his face in his hands, forcing him to look into his eyes.  
  
Kane watches them carefully, and Miller could swear that he’s waiting for them to finish saying goodbye, before murdering them. There are fast paced exchanges of words that none of them can hear from the inside of the Ark, and at the last moment Jie moves his head and kisses Walker. Walker has just the time to nestle his lover against himself, then Kane floats them.  
  
Miller wakes up with a start with the echoes of his child-self’s screams still ringing in his ears.  
  
  
\+ + +   
  


Life in Mount Weather is probably the most hypocritical and perfect externalization of the internal battle Miller is living since he has awakened from that nightmare. A composed and neat surface concealing a riot made of eyes opened wide in the middle of the night and echoes in the hallways.

Discovering that Monty is alive and well--certainly better than him, who had to undergo several surgeries to recover from the fight with the Grounders--was worth all the pain that Miller had to go through, but now every time he looks at him he gets flashes of that man, Jie Green, the instant before being floated, and his chest contracts in a spasm of pain. That must have been his father.

Miller is not relieved to have finally found out what it is that binds him so instinctively to the Asian boy. Being a spectator of the execution of his father--to whom he looked frighteningly alike--for the crime of sodomy was not the best starting point. Moreover: did Monty know? How had his life been after that? How long was it before he was incarcerated? Why did he get himself into trouble, knowing the consequences?

A little part of Miller whispers a question he doesn’t dare to acknowledge: is he like his father? Has he lived with him long enough to find out his secret? Is it something you can transmit to others?

Child-Miller didn’t know anything about homosexuals and different possible orientations. He took for granted that what the Ark allowed was all that could exist, and that had been enough for him. After the execution of the gay couple, Miller had tried to ask his father what had happened, what was their crime, but his dad had always kept his mouth resolutely shut. The last moments between the two lovers had been hidden to his eyes by his father’s big hand covering half of his face.

As he grew up, he learned on his own what homosexual meant. He had to, since it was among the capital crimes of the Ark. In class with other guys, the teacher had explained that it was a safety measure to prevent the uncontrolled spreading of deadly diseases. Nobody in their right mind would have risked their life for a little bit of sex that a random woman could offer you without the prospect of death by epidemic or floating, right? Seemed a completely illogical choice.

But his friends in the Sky Box joked about the fact that it was because the Ark didn’t have resources to waste in lubricant and condoms. And for the one-time-one-child policy they didn’t need either.  
  
Miller’s rebel nature speeded up the process through which he emancipated himself from the Ark and its morality, realizing that every taboo served a purpose to those who held the power. At 13 years old, while he looked at the ceiling of his cell, Miller had finally understood and accepted what had happened to Walker and Jie, and hadn’t thought about them ever since.  
  
“Hey, you are a great thief!” Monty says, and Miller literally has to bite his lip so he won’t laugh like an idiot.  
  
They’re trying to get out of Mount Weather and Miller finally has an excuse to talk to the boy. There’s a sense of alienation, like a friction, as his fantasy layer slides against its reality version. He has spent so much time looking at Monty from afar that now he can’t come to terms with the fact that they are, in fact, talking together.  
  
Their knees brush as they’re on the bed, and with every accidental movement Miller feels Monty’s warmth. When Monty sighs with his mouth closed, all focused on the map he has on his legs, Miller has this absurd urge to put his hand under his nose and feel Monty’s breath on his skin. Even before his brain catches up and reminds him that nothing about this is normal, Miller reassures himself: this is Monty; it’s the Asian boy with the extraordinary brain and the unbelievably clean soul; it’s Monty. Miller can afford to want to spend the rest of his life looking for evidence that he really exists before his eyes.   
  
Then Jasper walks in, and everything stops again.  
  
  
\+ + +   
  
  
Actually talking to Monty is a strange and exciting thing, and never fails to leave an aftertaste of breathlessness in the back of Miller’s mouth. The simple ‘Hello’ or ‘Good night’ becomes a constant conquest, Monty’s eyes resting on him with growing familiarity a ritual Miller brushes up in his mind before sleep, seemingly uninterested in the reason why he feels the urge to do it in the first place.

Then, one morning, Miller enters the dorm room to change the shirt he had unintentionally let his breakfast taste, glad that everyone is still in the mess and will avoid further teasing for his clumsiness of the last period, and hears muffled sobs coming from the last bunks of the long room. A shiver runs down his spine even before his brain automatically recognizes Monty’s voice.

He finds him on Jasper’s bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress as if he wanted to run away at  any moment. His shoulders tremble in time with his heavy sighs, and Miller goes back to that night in the camp, when he had turned his back on him and had swallowed down his confusion with generous gulps of moonshine.

He won’t make the same mistake twice. This time Miller doesn’t think he’d be physically able to get away from Monty, not when every single whimper coming out of Monty’s mouth chokes the air out of Miller. Swallowing with difficulty through his suddenly dry throat, Miller walks toward the bed, hoping that Monty will hear his footsteps and compose himself before he arrives.

He moves with deliberate slowness to give Monty a few seconds, and the sobs cease immediately. When Miller sits down on the other side of the bed, Monty dries his eyes with the back of his wrist. Miller gets to see his reddened cheeks, and has to bit down the instinct to...to do what?

"Did breakfast taste like sliced human today?" Monty asks with a croaky voice. His tone is too cheerful, and the false note screeches like nails on a chalkboard.

"What's up?" Miller confesses the only question he’s afraid to ask because it's too direct. But the breakfast time is almost over and some will return to the dorms without a doubt; they won’t be alone for long.

Monty stiffens, and Miller fears he’s stepped over some sort of invisible line, but then Monty sighs again and seems to deflate like a punctured balloon: he folds down on himself until he has his elbows on his knees and the hands covering his face. There is something strange in his position, and it is only when Miller notices the fingertips white for the pressure that Monty is putting on his skin, and the line-forces stretching his body into a single bundle of energy, that he finally realizes the feeling Monty is drowning into: self-hate. Whatever has motivated the reaction, Monty is hating himself for it. Again the urgent need to reach out to touch him and let him know he’s not alone hits Miller right in the face.

Miller softens his voice even more, pushing it to bend in ways it never did before, toward expressions he has never addressed to anyone else. "Is it about Jasper?" he asks with a hint of fear. Because any problem Monty has, it always seems related to his best friend, and being captured and taken to Mount Weather hasn’t really changed anything.

Monty looks up suddenly, his eyes briefly shot wide with surprise. Miller wants to laugh and give him a pat on his forehead; did he really think he wasn’t being completely transparent?

Monty's shoulders relax and his eyebrows go down. He seems to debate internally what to do, until he tightens his lips, turns his body toward Miller, and nods solemnly.

Miller hears himself sigh, "I figured. What the hell did he do this time?"

The question seems to surprise Monty, because for a moment his eyes widen again. Now that Miller thinks about it, up to this moment he has always been careful to hide the instinctive hatred he feels for Jasper. Finding it an unmotivated whim if not for the strange effect that the Asian boy has on him, Miller has pushed his childish resentment under the carpet. However, things are a little bit more difficult when he has Monty in front of him with red eyes, swollen lips and dried tears’ trails on his cheeks. Miller tightens his fists.

Monty hears the movement against the blanket and looks down at his clenched fists, and a shadow of indecision passes on his face, before he swallows and takes a deep breath. “Jasper and I had a fight. He doesn’t want to get away from here until he’s sure he can bring Maya with him.”  
  
Miller has to refrain from rolling his eyes. “No way. Maya can’t survive outside, and we sure as hell aren’t going to survive inside.”   
  
"I know, that's exactly what I told him! But there was no way to change his mind, he’s completely lost his head for her. It happens every single time he has the hots for someone, but this time we are risking our life and I was really hoping he could be rational."  
  
Monty sighs and Miller settles down on the bed. It’s not hard to believe that Jasper could be so stupid, but that doesn’t justify Monty’s crying. There is more, and Miller is about to start wondering what the best lever to make Monty confide in him might be, when Monty quickly glances at the entry of the dormitory, and then starts again, “l mean, it’s not like the other times, I can hardly talk to him alone now, she’s always around, they kiss at every corner, it’s like she’s brainwashing him! He's a completely different person, I can barely recognize h--”  
  
Monty catches his breath, and as soon as his bottom lip starts to tremble, he lays a hand on it to stop it. Monty lowers his gaze, but he's not quick enough to hide his increasingly wet eyes. These are all details that Miller registers individually, as if they were sterile data to be included in an archive. As Monty loses control over his mask of anger and seems to dig his own grave, Miller begins to realize that maybe he completely misunderstood the nature of his relationship with Jasper.

Monty pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes, breathing out a “God, I’m so lame”, apparently giving up on the attempt to convince Miller that the problem with his best friend is not that personal, but there is no way to stop the train of thoughts in Miller’s head which is retracing all the events he witnessed the first day on Earth, and even before then, when they were on the Ark. All his memories change color under this new filter, but deep down Miller knows that this makes much more sense. There is no satisfaction in the solution of the big puzzle that is Monty Green.  
  
Monty sighs and manages to pull his lips into a smile, lowering his hands and letting them fall in his lap. “In every single memory since I was born, Jasper has always been with me. I sound spoiled, I know, I'll just get used to the fact that we are grown up men now, and we can’t always be together.” He shrugs, and it’s as if he was letting a great weight roll away from his shoulders. But what has Miller's stomach tightening in panic, is that this sounds like a definitive wall: somehow Miller knows that Monty is erecting a barrier that will be almost impossible to break down, especially with the little time that Earth gives them.  
  
Miller studies Monty and sees his confidence that Miller doesn’t know what he is really talking about. If Miller could peer over the black of his eyes, he would probably be able to see how that wall is being built with the cement of everyone’s indifference, perfected with Jasper’s absolute ignorance. Nobody has ever come close to guessing that option, thanks to the Ark’s obscurantist policy, and Monty has grown undisturbed in his loneliness. Monty’s smile whispers ‘Who cares?’, and Miller struggles to find something, anything that will stop him from shutting out the world. Or him.   
  
“I’m like you,” Miller confesses in an unconscious whisper, shocking himself. Monty frowns, confused by his reply, but as soon as he sees Miller’s stunned and terrified expression he seems to grasp what he’s referring to, and gapes at him.  
  
“What?”  
  
Monty is a picture of pure emotion, as if everything that his mask was hiding was being worn on his sleeve, and now Miller is a step away from knowing Monty better than anyone else. In a far corner of his mind, Miller finds the time to congratulate himself for finding the right lever to get the boy’s full attention. The rest of his brain is busy wondering why he’s chosen such a risky move, and how much truth lies in his words. Recapitulating all his memories with this new filter seems an extremely tiring task, and Miller is not sure of having enough energy to do it. Not when he has to struggle not to have a heart attack in front of the guy he certainly doesn’t have a crush on, after their mutual not-coming out.

“You heard me the first time,” Miller finds a little bit of control to try and tease him. He doesn’t believe he’s doing a good job, but it’s better than staying silent and letting his head scream in his stead. “I can imagine how you...I mean, I know what...if you ever want to talk to someone, you can talk to me.”  
  
Monty is still gaping at him, and Miller is already in panic without seeing Monty’s tongue. This whole conversation is going fubar, and Miller has no idea how to fix the problem. Moreover, Monty can still deny all the hints he’s left behind him till now and confess to being hetero, leaving Miller alone in a coffin he’s not even sure is of the right size.  
  
But the gaze he feels on his skin is not the kind of someone who’s about to raise their defenses: it’s thoughtful, shocked, but more than anything else it is hopeful, like Monty is letting himself believe that there might be someone who can understand him. There’s a tip of wonder and curiosity which makes Miller blush, embarrassment being a complete novelty in the spectrum of emotions he’s used to feeling.  
  
Silence stretches for too many seconds, and from the back of the corridor come voices of some of the guys returning from the mess. Their meeting is reaching an end, and the only thing Miller has obtained is confessing he’s gay--he will have the time to freak out about it later--and stopping Monty from crying again. At least that can be considered a worthy victory.   
  
When steps accompany the sound of the voices, Miller purses his lips and moves to stand up, trying to hide the tension in his shoulders at the thought of having exposed himself without the hope of receiving a feedback. But Monty reaches out and grabs his hand, closing his eyes as he swallows loudly, “T-thank you for saying it,” he says, lightly tightening his fingers against his palm. Miller is struck silent by the contact, forced into an internal battle as he struggles to keep his hand relaxed and not close it around the smaller one holding his. Glancing down at their joined hands, Miller marvels at the pretty contrast their skin colors make when they’re this close, at how that single lock of black hair joins with Monty’s jaw line, at how weird and unsettlingly beautiful his eyes are when seen from above.   
  
The first two guys enters the dorm, laughing and joking about whatever, and Monty doesn’t let go, probably still busy counting all the ways he can make Miller die of heart attacks in less than two minutes. Maybe the whole “I’m gay” thing hasn’t been that random. Maybe he was able to come up with that excuse that easily because he really is like Monty. If Monty is like that.   
  
Finally, Monty lets his head fall back and looks up at him, officially shutting off Miller’s breathing capabilities. “I thought I was the only one in the whole world, I’m glad I can talk to you.” He smiles shyly, and Miller loses his battle against his own body, closing his fingers around Monty’s.   
  
Other people come in, settling around them, seemingly oblivious to their weird behavior, but Miller finds himself completely indifferent to what others might think of them. If word were to get around that whoever hurts Monty has to answer to him, Miller is pretty sure that it would put an end to a lot of problems, and a lot of his own anxiety. Jasper would probably fight him because he’s a selfish dick and a spoiled child, but the idea of really protecting the boy he has before his eyes, instead of simply keeping an eye on him from afar, makes Miller feels so good that it scares him to hell and back.  
  
“No, you’re not alone,” Miller speaks softly, only for Monty’s ears.   
  
Monty flashes him another smile, and Miller mentally curses himself. He doesn’t really know what he’s got himself into, but as long as the asian little boy smiles, Miller gets to understand what really went on with the most meaningful and horrific event of his life, and somehow make peace with it. Because Monty is Jie’s son, and their lives have been entwined in ways he can’t fully comprehend since that tragic moment, but he has all the intention of finding that out.   
  
  
\+ + +  
  
  
In the following days Monty takes the initiative to be alone with Miller several times, and as they are surrounded by pictures in the museum wing of Mt. Weather, Monty tells Miller about how he started to realize that he's attracted to boys; how he developed a crush on Jasper when he was 8 years old that never really went away; how on the Ark he had to be careful at every slightest move to avoid arousing suspicions; how he let Jasper drag him into drugs because Monty needed an excuse for all those times he couldn’t restrain himself and ended up saying or doing something strange; that he had hated his father because he had thought it was all his fault he was feeling like that; how his parents were married but didn’t love each other, and that his mother knew about his father’s affair but was fine with it, because she simply didn’t care.

Miller listens to Monty almost without breathing, for fear that any noise would distract him from the flood of memories he’s lavishing with naturalness. Miller discovers that Monty is talkative by nature, and being in a position where he can receive all the confidences Monty seems to be dying to share, makes him feel a calm cheerfulness. As if there were still something beautiful to look at, something exciting to look forward to in the future.  
  
When, one afternoon, Monty asks about Miller's life, Miller decides not to lie to him and tells him that he was present at his father’s execution. Every word that comes out of his mouth weighs tons, and each one of them rests on Monty’s shoulders until he is bent on himself in his chair, eyes closed and lips tight to swallow down sobs that end up bouncing back in his shoulders anyway. Miller hates seeing Monty like this, but Monty begs him to keep talking whenever Miller closes his mouth. So Miller goes on with his story, with his father forcing him to attend the execution because he had to learn the lesson; how he hadn’t understood why those two men were being punished; how determined and proud to be the next to each other they were, despite everything.  
  
Miller tells him about his childhood with his hands holding Monty’s, because sometimes their memories overlap and, for Monty, listening seems to be physically painful, but he still stays there, determined to reciprocate the patience Miller had shown when Monty was the one doing the talking. Miller doesn’t know how to explain that for him it had been a pleasure and an honor receiving those confidences, that knowing about Monty’s and his father’s life had helped him understand better the injustices of the Ark’s system, how much his own father had been the victim and not the executioner of a martial regime that killed individuality and deviation from the standard. He cannot explain that his whole life had begun to spin out of control the day he first saw him on the Earth, his father’s photocopy and a sight of kindness and goodness in the midst of a mass of teenagers, angry with the world.  
  
So Miller keeps on talking about how he had rebelled against his father, and the Ark, and all the rules he had to follow in the name of a future he didn’t want; about how in the Sky Box he ended up in isolation for brawling more than a few times; how those around him used homosexuality as an insult because it was a taboo both feared and rejected on the Ark; how those guys used to make a small group of five idiots and beat you half to death in the showers, then called it "rape" later, too drowned in the Ark’s implicit homophobia to really do anything of the sort.  
  
But he also tells Monty about beautiful memories, and they talk for an entire afternoon about the breathtaking rises of the moon, how different it had been to see the first sunrise on the Earth--Monty confesses he cried like a baby, and Miller bumps his knee, calling him a weakling--, and the smell of the grass after the rain, the incessant noise of insects, the feeling of being at home in a tent, with the dropship’s shadow stretched over the camp; and it becomes a habit to sit on the edge of their chairs, elbows on their knees and hands holding each other between them as they talk and share, confide and confess, forgive and forget about every little regret they ever had in their lives.   
  
Miller didn’t think he had so much to share, but in the end he finds out that his whole life had been bottled up, that lie or truth doesn’t matter, that even if he isn’t really gay he can stand beside Monty and know that they share something. They can’t be more different, but they experienced the very same traumatic event in both their lives, and that was something that had bonded them together without them knowing.   
  
It shows when they are in the dorm with all the others, how easy it’s for them to share a joke or tease each other, whereas in the past they would have barely locked eyes. Miller notices Jasper looking at them with a frown on his face, but bless his idiocy, he’s too busy falling hard for Maya to realize how much they have become close in a handful of days.   
  
But the closer Miller and Monty get, the more Miller hates Jasper’s guts. Monty has now told every single moment that had characterized their friendship over the years, every single nuance that had made his heart beat faster and every other which had made him wish he had never met him. Miller wants to punch Jasper so bad he has dreams about it. He’s this huge shadow behind Monty, always looming in his thoughts, giving him that melancholic aura that had thrown Miller off the first time he had seen it. Monty is way more than his crush for his best friend, but somehow it is also one of his most characteristic traits, the one Miller can’t stop thinking about.

Miller overcompensates by teasing Monty mercilessly when they are in public, trying to make Jasper see how close they are, how much Miller knows about Monty, how much Monty reacts to him, compared to Jasper.

"Big ass enough for you?" Miller asks, holding the hammer in his hands. Monty nods with both his eyebrows raised in surprise and embarrassment, and Miller really wishes he could hit himself in the head to regain some kind of lucidity.

Miller hears Jasper muttering "What the hell?" under his breath, and he's about to turn around and vent some of his frustration, when Monty snorts. It's such a simple reaction and yet Miller turns into a giggling idiot, glancing at Monty who's shaking his head at him as if he were the biggest idiot on Earth and he was dead tired of putting up with him. Miller raises the hammer, focusing on the wall in front of him, picturing Jasper's face in every crack of the painted surface, and this time his muscles vibrates for something other than anger, envy, and jealousy.   
  
There has been a change in Monty's attitude, and Miller has been too blinded by his own feelings to keep a detailed track of it; he knows it is there, but he really doesn't know how fast it’s going and in which direction. First Monty had stopped asking in private about the jokes and the teasing Miller throws at him whenever Jasper is around, then he’d simply started going along with them, seemingly uninterested in what Jasper or others would think of their unexpected relationship.

The hammer hits the wall, sending a shock through Miller's arms, and he hopes that they will think his smile is for the really macho activity, instead of Monty's presence next to him. It leaves a warm print on him and makes Miller feel like he's accomplishing his duty on this hellish planet by protecting the boy, and why not, even by making each other a little bit happier in the meantime.  
  


\+ + +  
  
  
The very same day Monty disappears, and when the only answer Jasper can muster is that he was with Maya and thought that Monty was with him, there's no stopping Miller's fist from breaking Jasper's nose.

Miller feels his own organs crack in time with every terrified beat of his heart. They know what Mt. Weather is capable of, and the thought of those monsters coming even close to Monty is enough to make Miller want to scream and set the whole place on fire. He promises it in front of the pale couple, but it's more like a warning for everyone: whoever touches Monty will die.

They don't find him for another two days, until Lincoln bursts in with a bunch of Grounders--Miller should feel worried, but he doesn't--, proclaims the base a Grounder colony, and sets them free.

Through the corridors, people are talking about Clarke and someone named Lexa leading the soldiers to victory, changing Reapers back into men, moving toward the Ice Nation to take revenge for an old wound. Miller has no interest in any of that.   
  
As he walks among the cells they were kept in when they first had been captured, he checks every single room just to be sure that Monty is not in one of them, hoping and deluding himself that Monty has not suffered what Miller has had nightmares about since he disappeared. The thought he could be already dead flashes in his mind, but it makes his vision go dark and air escape from his lungs, so Miller forces himself to ignore that option and simply keeps on looking for him.  
  
“The cages!” Maya shouts from somewhere farther back in the corridor, and Miller is running before he has even had the time to process her words. He pushes people aside without caring if they’re friends or foes, his steps hitting the floor with increasing speed as the metallic door isolating the cages comes into view, in the far corner of the corridor.   
  
People around him cease to have faces, he fights against them to reach his goal before the others. In the back of his mind Miller knows that their "saviors" are freeing other guinea pigs still closed in the cells, new prisoners taken from other clans, and that they are heading to the cages just like he is. But he could never forgive himself for not being the first to break that door, if Monty's in there.   
  
Miller recognizes Lincoln at the head of the group, and a few meters away from him the closed door to the cages room they had glimpsed from the opposite wing. If it’s locked, he’ll need something to force it open, but a quick glance confirms that the Grounders around him are only armed with daggers and rudimentary swords. Clenching his jaw, Miller looks at the objects laying in the corridor: vials, empty plastic bags, gloves, masks, bio-hazard suits, a little metal table with towels on it, a foldable chair, paintings on the walls, warning signs for contamination, and another one for fires, hanging just below a fire extinguisher.  
  
Miller doesn’t think twice and detaches himself from the group to remove the extinguisher from the hooks on the wall, weighing its heaviness and calibrating in which direction he should hit the handle to make it come off along with part of the lock. He repositions his hands to get a better grip and charges the blow from above, dropping the fire extinguisher in an abrupt move against the handle. Be it because Mt.Weather is not the newest, most resistant place in the world, or because Miller used more force than what he believed he had, the handle falls to the ground as if it were simply glued to the door, leaving a hole with jagged, light brown edges. The door had been painted gray, but it is made of wood. Miller kicks the lock, the door caves in immediately and opens inwards.  
  
He hears different gasps and screams, the interior of the room plunged into darkness but for a distant glimmer of bluish light coming from the vents on the back wall. There are three rows of cages placed lateral to a central pathway, some already opened. A couple of guys he doesn’t recognize as delinquents are out, clinging to the cages to stay upright, their legs angled after who knows how much time spent folded on themselves in a confined space. Next to them, with a pair of pliers in his hand and his chest streaked with parallel cuts, stands Bellamy Blake. Miller is briefly struck speechless, surprised to find him in there. Was he captured along with the other 47 weeks ago and kept in here all the time?  
  
"Help me free them, we'll talk later," Bellamy says with his usual authority. It’s not exactly to obey his commander that Miller moves, fire extinguisher still hanging to his fingers. From the hallway behind him, Miller hears Lincoln order the others to keep on inspecting the remaining cells, while four of them have to follow him in here to help the wounded. He must have heard the cries when Miller broke through the door.  
  
Miller takes an overview of the cages in front of him, a showcase of humans who don’t have that much humanity anymore, and tries to recognize their faces, but the looks he gets back are all the same expression of surrender and no individuality. Dread settles in his stomach, and he has to close his eyes to the hell in front of him for a moment. Again that ominous flash in his head, and again he has to push down his conscience to not throw up on his own feet. He coughs against a wave of bile and draws a deep breath. Lincoln and the other Grounders enter the room and in the background Bellamy starts to give orders to the newcomers; Miller focuses enough to be able to work for the half humans before him.  
  
"Stay back if you can," Miller warns the prisoners, aiming at the first cage he finds on his right.

He's lifting the fire extinguisher to hit the lock of the cage when he hears a "Nate?" coming from the last column of cages, and his heart stops. Or begins to beat again. In both cases, it's like electrocuting himself and feeling his own body discharge the electricity to the ground.

"Monty?" he calls back with trembling voice, not daring to believe it for fear that it’s just a hallucination. His arms give a worrying shudder and he remembers that he still has the fire extinguisher lifted in the air; with a grunt he hits the lock, and the cage opens with a creak. Knowing that Lincoln and others are just behind him, he leaves the fire extinguisher on the floor and walks towards the end of the row.   
  
Miller looks inside each cage on both sides, his heart speeding up whenever he sees black hair or some similarity in their faces. Each step is a chance less he has really heard Monty’s voice, but until he has checked all of them, he won’t be able to calm down. His gaze covers the rest of the cages on the left, and he can’t recognize any familiar faces in them; fist tightening, he shifts towards the remaining cages on his right, moving from top to bottom over the three rows.   
  
In the last cage at the bottom, he finally spots Monty, his eyes fixed on Miller and his mouth open in a smile. "Nate!"  
  
Miller is kneeling in front of the cage in a nanosecond, his hands resting on the front of the grate, "I'm going to pull you out, hold on." He looks around in search of a tool that he can use, now that the extinguisher is at least four feet away and Miller has no intention of getting away for even a second.  
  
One of Grounders busy opening the cages close to Monty's, sees that Miller cannot open the one he is clinging to and decides to take pity on him, skipping three cages and giving priority to his. The Grounder simply nods to him and clamps the piece of iron that holds the door closed. Miller opens the cage and next moment Monty is into his arms, all sharp bones and cold skin.   
  
"You came!" Monty says, squeezing his arms around his neck, and Miller tries to cover as much exposed skin he feels against himself as he can, in a desperate attempt to stop Monty from trembling, to make him understand that he has nothing to fear now, that he'll never let him go where he can’t follow.  
  
Monty's hand touches his hair and starts stroking his neck soothingly, and the wonder for that gesture freezes Miller long enough to make him realize that he is the one who’s trembling. Realizing it is like opening a pressure valve, and Miller presses Monty to his chest, burying his face in between his neck and his shoulder. Miller has no idea if he's crying or laughing or having a panic attack, his breath comes out with difficulty through clenched teeth, and Monty, with extreme patience, continues to caress him as if he wasn’t the one in need of care.  
  
From the direction of the entrance, Miller hears Jasper and Maya come in. Grounders and those who have been freed move toward them, anxious to get out as soon as possible, gradually leaving them in their bubble of relief and burnt adrenaline. Neither seems to have any intention of moving.

Bellamy barks to move so they can all leave this ‘goddamn fucking place’, but as much as Miller agrees with him, he can’t find the will to move. Not now that Monty is with him again, after fearing of having lost him forever.  
  
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Miller murmurs against Monty’s collarbone, receiving only a shrug as an answer.  
  
Monty moves his legs, and Miller reluctantly loosens the grip he has on his back to allow him to get up--he imagines it to be quite painful for Monty staying curled up after two days spent huddled in the cage--, but Monty simply shifts his weight sitting better, and doesn’t let go of him. His sigh suggests Miller that now he’s more comfortable than before, and Miller slides his hands on his bare skin again, paying more attention this time to look for the coldest places against which he lays his hands.  
  
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Monty confesses close to Miller’s ear, and at the thought, a chilly shiver climbs up Miller’s spine. He knows too well what Monty is talking about, and the only thing Miller wants is to forget that these two days have ever existed.  
  
“I really thought I’d…” Monty’s voice dies in his throat and Miller hushes him, rocking them gently.

Miller leans his lips on his cold shoulder and exhales against it, blazing a trail of litanies made of "everything is ok now" s, "I'm here" s, "you're safe” s, which doesn’t really reassure them, but it’s definitely a good start. Monty’s body slowly warms over, and the grey of his skin takes on a more lively hue. It’s a stupid thing to think, but Miller likes to tell himself he’s transmitting his energy, so he lightly pushes Monty back, taking his cheeks in his hands and observing how his face regains that light he had when they used to talk about funny childhood memories.     
The close proximity seems to take a different meaning at the last second, their faces close enough that they can’t focus on more than a single detail of each other at a time. Miller's throat dries instantly, while his gaze falls on the line of Monty’s nose, then follows it down to his lips. The somersault that his heart does takes Miller by surprise enough that he returns his gaze on Monty, finding his lashes lowered and his attention shifted to his lips as well. Miller is quite sure he starts sweating from his fingertips, because Monty shifts the arms still loosely wrapped around his neck, and lays his hands over his.  
  
Miller’s senses go into overdrive, to the point of hearing Jasper from across the room asking what the heck they were waiting for before leaving, and Harper answering curtly to leave them alone for a while. Miller frowns, not understanding exactly what Harper is referring to, then feeling the first and disturbing twinge of fear at the thought of someone marking him as a homosexual, when his brain finally catches up. Miller still doesn’t know how to label himself--and even if he should in the first place--and actually couldn’t care less about what others think, but he knows what happens to deviants when they are discovered. On the Ark such a situation would cost both their life, exactly as it cost Monty’s father.  
  
Miller feels himself literally freeze and lets go of Monty’s face, but Monty stops him and puts his hands back against his cheeks. He is all determined and confident, with raised eyebrows and tight lips. "We are not on the Ark," he says, and it sounds like a promise and a reassurance at the same time.  
  
Miller feels completely at a loss in front of Monty’s confidence, and as Jasper’s voice cuts again between them, calling for Monty to get his ass over there and show him that he’s alive, he realizes that he has monopolized him for the whole time and prevented other people who cared about him to welcome him back. “Sorry, you’ll probably want to go and--”  
  
“Wait for a minute, will ya? We’re having a moment here!” Monty shouts back to Jasper, earning a confused “A moment about what?” in response, but his attention is already back on Miller and he sighs, closing his eyes as a red blush colors his pale skin. “I really don’t know how to do this,” he mutters to himself, though Miller hears it anyway because they’re still close enough to share their breaths.   
  
“Me neither. And I shouldn’t even know what ‘this’ is,” Miller says, embarrassed. He never stopped feeling like he had stepped into something that didn’t really resonate with him--mostly because he had lied when he had outed himself--and yet at the same time he can’t help but walk down that unknown path, finding his steps unexpectedly easy, putting himself in situations that should make him feel like crawling out of his skin, and instead have him wanting to crawl under someone else’s.   
  
Someone who is just one breath away from him, looking all flustered and choking on words he isn’t even speaking, tightening his grip on Miller’s hands, firmly planted against his cheeks, as if they were necessary to ground him, and in that single moment all the anxiety leaves Miller’s body. He climbs that mass of thoughts and feelings all tangled up in his head, and gives up on giving it a sense; Miller simply gives it a name and accepts it as it is, thus erasing all the problems he was ignoring about how he should deal with it.   
  
“But you know what it is, right?” Monty asks him, barely opening his eyes and settling on staring at his shirt.   
  
Miller laughs softly, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs, “Yeah, I think I do. But what about that big idiot over there?”   
  
Monty shrugs, even though his face says that the dismissal doesn’t really do justice to what is happening inside him. “Things change,” he replies, but Miller knows that they will probably have to talk a lot about that, and that he’s signing himself for a really painful ride.   
  
“Are you sure?”   
  
“I know what I dreamed about when I thought I would die here,” Monty replies softly, and Miller is about to cover his mouth with his hands because he can’t think about what they’ve risked, not yet.  
  
“Ok then,” Miller breathes as Monty opens up in a smile, and maybe this will work out, maybe one day he’ll fully comprehend the chain of events that brought them both here. Until then, Miller will amuse himself thinking that it was fate.   
  
When Jasper comes back into the room to call them, he finds them kissing, seemingly lost to the world.   
  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the finally free elf [Zoadgo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo), for editing it, and to [Nika](http://thislittlebadwolf.tumblr.com) for the prompt and the patience!
> 
> And obviously thanks to anyone who will read it, comment it, _kudos it_ , ignore it etc.  
> Feel totally free to contact me here or on [my tumblr](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com)!


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